


An Unexpected Path

by flibbertygigget



Series: An Unexpected Universe [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asshole Characters Being Assholes, Divorce, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 23:16:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15496950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: Petunia Dursley hadn’t had to question her world in almost a decade. Her path was simple and straight, laid out in front of her like a shining concrete promise, without a single crossroad or pothole – or cobblestone, Petunia thought angrily as she stumbled over the uneven Cokeworth street.Or: Petunia makes a very important decision.





	An Unexpected Path

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Un chemin inattendu](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17216639) by [Matteic_FR (Matteic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matteic/pseuds/Matteic_FR)



Petunia Dursley clutched her purse as she walked over the bridge that separated Cokeworth’s revitalized center from the dilapidated shell of the old mill town. She could have waited for Snape to appear in the alleyway alongside the city hall, the way they had planned, but she’d be damned if she skulked about like some miscreant. Besides, she didn’t want to leave Dudders in that creature’s clutches for longer than necessary. Unfortunately, that meant walking through graffiti-blasted streets that hadn’t seen a proper coat of paint in a generation.

She pursed her lips as she thought about the meeting she’d just had with the solicitor at city hall and the thick ream of paper she had stuffed in her purse. Three copies of the application form and her marriage certificate. And even after hearing her story of how Vernon wanted to make the boy sleep in a cupboard, the damned man had told her that it would be better to simply let it be. She just had to cool off, and maybe after a few days or weeks or months she would see reason.

Petunia Dursley hadn’t had to question her world in almost a decade. She had always striven to be perfectly normal – a normal, loving wife and mother. Her path was simple and straight, laid out in front of her like a shining concrete promise, without a single crossroad or pothole – or cobblestone, Petunia thought angrily as she stumbled over the uneven Cokeworth street. 

But perfect families didn’t keep their nephews in cupboards under the stairs. Perfect families didn’t escape into the night with only clothes and a few essential pieces of paper. Vernon had never bothered with things like that, preferring to work and earn and leave the rest to Petunia. It was lucky for her that he had, since that meant that she had been able to snatch some thousand-odd pounds from her emergency fund under the kitchen sink.

Come to think of it, she had never heard of a perfect family where the wife had to hide her emergency fund from her husband for fear of… for fear of what? What had she been so afraid of?

Well, she would have to file for separation, at any rate, no matter what the damn solicitor said. She didn’t think that she could go back to pulling the wool over her own eyes. If Vernon was willing to do something like that to the boy, he could be willing to do the same to her son as well. Petunia wasn’t strong-willed or brave – that was for men and her foolish sister – but there was little she wouldn’t become for the sake of her child.

_Children. You are raising children._

“Piss off, Snape,” she muttered. She certainly hadn’t asked to be saddled with a second boy a mere year after the first. It was just like Lily, really, to go off half-cocked and leave the rest of them with the mess she’d made. Not to mention those bloody wizards, showing up on a decent person’s doorstep and telling them to take on yet another responsibility with no thought of food and finances and all those things that concerned lowly Muggles.

Finances. Petunia let out a low groan. She would have to count again, but she had the sinking feeling that her emergency fund wouldn’t cover half of what she needed. The separation fee, while not as expensive as that for a divorce, was still about £400. That was almost half of what she had been able to take from under the sink, and what was left would barely even begin to cover the rent on a two-bedroom flat. She had browsed the classifieds when waiting for the solicitor, and even on the low end it would come out to around £100 per week. The rest of her emergency fund would be gone within two months – less than that when you added groceries and whatever else she would need – and as a 28-year-old housewife with little work history and no skills, she would be hard pressed to find a job that could cover all her expenses.

Maybe she could go back to Vernon. Go back to Vernon, apologize for running out on him, and then… what? Watch as he brought down his force on first her nephew, then her son? Or worse, watch as he turned her darling Duddikins into a man in his own image? Maybe before, when she had followed his lead without question, that would have been an easy way out. Leave the boy with Snape – they seemed to get on well enough – and return to Vernon, her duty done. But now that she had opened her eyes, she knew that things could never be the same. She would never be able to watch her son become his father without a tinge of horror, of the kind of man who would banish a child to a cupboard.

But what else was there? Petunia looked up when she came to the familiar playground, and it was like the answer was laid out in from of her. There was Snape, that ugly, filthy little river rat – and there was her son, smiling as he was being pushed on the swing set.

Both the boys were being pushed on the swing set, actually. Snape mostly stayed behind them, pushing one or the other as they swung back, but then she heard Harry-

“Higher! Higher!”

-and Snape raced under the boy, raising his arms as high as they could go and lifting the child. Snape swung around the side of the swing set so that he was behind them again.

“Me too!” her Dudley said, and Snape did the same for him, the exact same, and Dudley started laughing in excitement.

Petunia tried to remember if Vernon had ever taken the boys, even just his own son to a playground, but she drew a blank. Vernon worked, or else he sat watching television in his shirtsleeves. He bought Dudders expensive gifts – a telly, a remote control aeroplane, £600 tennis shoes – but none of those things had ever made her darling look that happy and excited.

And the boy, Harry… he looked just as happy as Dudley. More happy, even. With his black hair and thin face, he might have been Snape’s son, but Snape didn’t seem to be doing anything to make up for Petunia’s son’s presence in their day. Maybe he didn’t feel like he had to compensate for it like she did, since neither of them were his.

Still, he was… good with them. Better than Vernon had ever been. He wasn’t “rolling in Galleons,” as he had put it, but... she could get a job. If he let them stay there, in the bloody two-up two-down that looked like it hadn’t been redecorated since the ‘60s, she could do it. She and the children could be mostly self-sufficient. She could leave Vernon and never have her family go back to what it had been.

She sped up, not caring about the uneven cobblestones anymore. It would take some doing, convincing the bastard to take the lot of them in, but it wouldn’t be permanent. Besides, she had a feeling, from the way he looked at the boys, that he was already becoming accustomed to the idea of them being around for a while.


End file.
